Police Detain, Search College Student Discussing Concealed Carry Permit

Police detained and searched a college student at Kent State University who talked to a friend about her concealed carry permit.

The student, Leandra Westbrook, said she and a friend were having a conversation, which student cadet officers overheard and reported.

Campus Reform reports that the pertinent part of the conversation centered on Westbrook’s telling her friend, “It is a shame that I cannot carry a gun on campus, considering I have my carry license.”

Following the conversation, Westbrook was sitting in anatomy class, and officers came into the lecture hall. A police report of the incident indicates she was “removed from class and searched.”

Westbrook said the incident left her “too shaken up and disturbed to return back to class,” yet she does not blame the police for acting as they did. Rather, she believes everything stemmed from one of the cadets who overheard her conversation and reported her.

She said, “I do not believe they genuinely thought I was a threat, because I specifically said I had a license to carry. In the conversation I had, there was no way to misinterpret what I said, or to even suggest that I had a gun with me.” Westbrook added, “[I] would not be surprised if the student cadet who reported me was targeting me for being pro-Second Amendment.”

Westbrook is responding to the incident by pursuing charges against those whom she says falsely reported her. She said, “I’ll be reporting the people who harassed me to the police, as well as the student cadets who reported me for having a gun for falsifying a report, as they said that they heard me say I had a gun and was afraid to get caught with it, which is not true.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.